Broken Chains
by The Exile
Summary: The annual tournament is over. King DeDeDe and Sonic are dead, but their real problems are just beginning when they both reincarnate as Link. Ike is alive, and in an even bigger mess! Set after the events of ScriptFrenzy '09.
1. Chapter 1

---- Broken Chains ----

GAME OVER.

He blinked until the two words etched onto his vision went away, then looked down at his hands. They were no longer covered in his own blood. The hole in the middle of his chest where King DeDeDe had caved in his ribcage with a large sledgehammer was completely healed. He was having second thoughts about his choice of opponent. It was hard to engineer a rigged battle between him and someone who actually moved at a hundredth of his speed. It probably looked completely obvious. If anyone else at all had been close enough to his own level for it to be an honourable death and gullible enough to talk into killing somebody without asking questions, he would have chosen them.

"Excuse me, sir?"

She looked up into the impassive face of a woman in a black suit with a small red line embroidered on the lapel. She wasn't a Valkyrie. Valkyries didn't wear suits. This wasn't Valhalla. Valhalla didn't have a waiting room with a coffee table and a magazine rack that had a pamphlet in it entitled 'Mummy Ran Out Of Continues'. Besides, he had been here a thousand times before, he knew very well where he was. Had Freya lied to him? Where was the beautiful armoured maiden who was supposed to take him up on a fiery chariot to eternally battle with other legendary warriors? He had definitely seen her. He had watched her stab King DeDeDe to death after he tried to grope her.

"Sonic the Hedgehog?"

"Th... that's me."

"Sonic the Hedgehog, 18, cause of death: industrial accident, continues: 2."

"In what way was this an industrial...?"

"Mr. Sonic the Hedgehog, please come with me." she said, before turning her back on Sonic and walking out of the door. Sonic sprang after her, almost tripping over his own feet in his effort to fend off the impulse to dart down the corridor faster than the speed of sound for long enough that he could follow her and find out where he was actually going. They went down a few dark corridors with red flashing lights and monitors on the walls, displaying the names of everyone on the Game Over Screen and how many continues they had left, millions upon millions of them. All the numbers made his head spin. They were higher than his highest ever recorded score. After turning a few corridors, they stopped at a glass door marked 'Department of Reincarnation'. The woman pushed the door open and Sonic followed her into the small office. Behind a door in the back, he could hear the humming of a large machine that glowed with a blue aura she could see from here.

"Are you aware that you've been selected for inclusion on the Fast Track Guaranteed Positive Reincarnation Programme?"

"The what?"

"Its a programme created by the Game Over Screen to minimise narrative strain caused by incomplete personal destinies." said the woman, "If you fail to achieve your destiny in one life, as long as you have two referees who can vouch for you that you made a significant attempt at achieving your destiny, you will be guaranteed a reincarnation in a more advantageous position where you will have a much better chance of achieving your destiny."

"Uh..." said Sonic, scratching his quills and fighting the urge to jump on top of the machine to see if rabbits came out of it.

"We received references from a Ms. Lenneth Valkyrie and a Ms. Silmeria Valkyrie."

"Uh..." he repeated.

"If you would just like to wait, there is currently a queue for the machine but we'll get you reincarnated as soon as possible." she said, "Is there anything in particular you want to be reincarnated as?"

"What do I want to be reincarnated as? Are you joking?" Sonic put his hands on his hips, "I want to be a hedgehog again, of course! Why would anyone ever want to be anything else except a hedgehog?"

"Very well, sir, if you insist..."

Before she could turn around to head towards the machine, he added,

"But next time I want to be a hedgehog on the winning side."

----

The machine's brilliant cyan flash lit up the entire corridor for a second. It made a humming noise like a scanner, surprisingly quiet for such a large machine.

At the same time, a tall, dark, powerful figure stepped out of the door of a Recycle Bin. He took one look at the struggling form he held aloft by the throat in one hand, then dropped the man into the deletory void beneath him. The man's screams lasted only half a second before he was erased, but they still brought a smile to Ganondorf's face. Then he stepped onto a moving platform and left the Bin for good.

"That'll teach you." he said in a low voice, "To kill me off in a cut scene."

With a soft whine, the platform glided over to the main entrance to the Game Over Screen, a pair of glass double doors. He fished around in his pockets for a Continue.

"And a dire cut scene it was." he added, "Bunch of amateurs..."

The light caught his attention as he walked right into it. It hurt his eyes. I must have taken a wrong turning, he thought. He was trying to get to the Continue Shop to replenish his dwindling supply. The route had never involved bright blue lights before. Suddenly curious, he poked his head around the door.

He was almost smacked in the face by the door as it was flung open and three secretaries ran out. Their flustered behaviour, their ruffled appearance and the way they talked in a tirade of panicked yells reminded Ganondorf of the chickens that were bred on the farms of Hyrule.

"... Machine's gone crazy."

"WHAT?"

"Its not just that machine. Dave from Sector B just paged me. Their entire wing is on the blink. The entire reincarnation system's gone haywire."

"Reincarnation, hm?" Ganondorf smiled as he watched them run down the corridor. Then he opened the door again and took another peek.

Yelling every swear word he knew, which covered the vocabulary of every sentient race in a medium-sized galaxy, Ganondorf ran like hell.


	2. Chapter 2

"LINKS!" screamed Ganondorf, "LINKS EVERYWHERE!"

Bowser looked up from his copy of the Fourside Financial Times. He had been relaxing on his favourite armchair, the one he had carefully formed a groove in that made the chair impossible for anyone not Bowser-shaped to sit in, with his usual cup of very strong coffee. Donkey Kong lay curled up on the sofa, eating a banana he held in his feet. Wolf stood in the corner, lounging against the wall. He had been on his phone for the last five hours. It hadn't been a busy time of day for the Ninten Lodge of the Level Guardian Society until their Master teleported into the middle of the room. It was unusual to see him flustered over his arch-adversary, thought Bowser. Ganondorf didn't get flustered about anything, let alone someone he considered little more than an idiot boy. It was an extremely unprofessional attitude for a reputable Final Guardian.

"Is something the matter, Boss?" asked Donkey Kong, springing up on his left arm and leg.

The tall, powerful man in black plate mail pushed past the huge ape, walked up to Wolf and snatched his phone away from him.

"Hello, is this Samus Aran? Yes, I've got a commission for you... its an emergency... a dire emergency... HOW MUCH? Okay, forget it... damn rip-off mercenary bitch..."

Ganondorf threw the phone on the ground and stamped on it. Wolf opened his mouth to complain but one look at the genocidal expression on Ganondorf's face warned him against it.

"We don't have the resources to cope with something on this scale." he said, pacing the room, "I'm going to have to go interplanetary with this. Ragnaros owes me a favour anyway. If only Giygas were still among us..."

"If I may ask, Sir, what appears to be the problem?" asked Bowser, raising an eyebrow. He didn't really feel like working but if it avoided having the pyromaniac set fire to the Lodge again, it was worth it.

"Links!" he repeated.

"Link is what?"

"No, Links! Lots of them!" he said, "Something's gone wrong with the Hylian Closed Reincarnation System. Link isn't being reincarnated as Link any more... EVERYONE is being reincarnated as Link!"

"Oh dear."

"Never mind 'oh dear'! If I don't put this right, there could be MILLIONS of Links! Millions of people running around with swords trying to kill me!" he said, "I can't hold off THAT many of them! And what's worse, I'll get the blame. I always do whenever anything in Hyrule goes wrong."

"Donkey Kong will defeat them!"

Everyone in the room turned to look at the monkey.

"Donkey Kong will defeat the Links and save Mr. Ganondorf from their wrath!" declared Donkey Kong, roaring and beating his chest, "Then Donkey Kong will make a name for himself and earn his promotion!"

"What promotion?" asked Ganondorf.

"DONKEY KONG WILL EARN HIS PROMOTION!"

"Go away, you big stupid..." Ganondorf paused, "You know, I think that's an excellent idea. You go and fight all the Links. I hope you return victorious. It would be such a shame to lose such a... valuable member of the Society."

"Mister Ganondorf, Sir..." began Bowser, but Ganondorf had already teleported back out of the room, "NO! Donkey Kong! OPEN the door before you run thr... Too late. oh, well..."


	3. Chapter 3

"KING DEDEDE DEMANDS AN EXPLANATION FOR WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO HIM!"

The Valkyrie Peach turned to face the source of the irate voice addressing her, her right hand resting upon the tip of her combat umbrella. Even without the introduction, roared at the top of his voice, she knew it was him. Only DeDeDe would try and use a sword as bludgeoning instrument to break down a door. Well, perhaps Ike, but, to the best of her knowledge, Ike wasn't dead. She would have nabbed him for her Einherjar collection if he was. Provided she could tell him apart from the others.

"I'm afraid that I have as little information as you do." she said, "If I did know what was happening, I would be working on a solution, not desperately herding Links."

"They're like chickens but worse!" added Zelda. The other woman was sat at a desk, staring through a one-way glass panel at the enormous chamber that their balcony overlooked, in which endless rows of Links formed some semblance of a large queue, all pushing, bickering and waving swords around. The Einherjar were helping to keep order by beating them with sticks when necessary.

"KING DEDEDE CANNOT REMAIN LIKE THIS!" yelled the fat-penguin-turned-small-sword-wielding-Hylian. He would have sounded more impressive if he still had a loud, booming voice and not one that was suddenly several octaves higher.

"At least you have your personality." said Peach, "Most people took on Link's personality as well. You must be exceptionally strong-willed to remember your previous life."

"We think Sonic mostly retained his personality." added Zelda, pushing a button on a control panel under her hands that caused several of the more rowdy Links to receive strong electric shocks. She could see DeDeDe looking at the buttons longingly. This made a change from him looking at her and Zelda longingly, "However, he does seem to have an unusually strong urge to kill Ganondorf."

"That's because this is so obviously his work!" said Sonic – or, at least, an unusually fast-moving Link – who walked through the door with a tea tray. He looked down slightly forlornly at the wreckage of their once ornately carved door, "Who else would have any motive to do such a thing?"

"Why in sweet Gigyue's name would Ganondorf want to do it?" asked Zelda, "NOBODY would want such a thing to happen! It has to be a malfunction! We should just go to Hyrule and..."

"Don't be stupid!" snapped Peach, "If its this bad here, how bad is it going to be in Hyrule? The Links are naturally all going to flock to Hyrule! It'll be complete pandemonium!"

Privately, Zelda felt a pang of guilt about this. When she originally banished Link permanently from Hyrule, she had hired Samus to guard the gates and kill him if he tried to re-enter the Kingdom. The bounty hunter now had only two choices: to remain at her post and defend the gates to the last against insurmountable odds or to abandon the mission and risk damaging her reputation as the galaxy's greatest bounty hunter forever. She admired the woman and did not want to cause so much trouble for her. She suspected the trouble would be rectified in the same way that most Samus-related trouble was: by paying her vast amounts of money. Money was becoming a problem for her, though, since she became a Valkyrie. Princesses normally had a lot of money, but provided they were still Princesses and remained in their Kingdom. The money wasn't really hers, it was Hyrule's. Outside Hyrule, she had nothing. As a Valkyrie, she needed money about as much a frog needs save points, so it didn't normally bother her, but it made paying Samus difficult.

"You must do something!" ordered King DeDeDe, "King DeDeDe will not live his entire life in this inferior body! I demand you think of something NOW!"

You're lucky I let you live at all, thought Peach. At least you've lost some weight now, you flabby penguiny bastard.

"We could ask Pit." said Zelda.

"Pit? What's he got to do with it?" asked Peach.

"He knows some Gods of his own, remember? His father is Zeus and his mother is Palutena."

"Who?" asked Peach.

"Palutena. Female. Archer. Beautiful beyond comparison. Ring any bells?"

"You mean Lenneth? Didn't she used to work here?"

Zelda shook her head and sighed, "What I'm trying to drive at, is that Pit has some contacts down in the Underworld. It might be a problem at their end."

"Well, its an idea..." said Peach.

"King DeDeDe thinks it is an excellent idea!" said DeDeDe, clapping his hands, "We must go now without delay and talk to our friend Pit! He will be glad to see us!"

Before Zelda could react, DeDeDe had somehow grabbed both Sonic and Peach by their arms and was pulling them out of the doorway with much more force than Link's small frame should logically be able to exert. She looked at them, then back at the chaos being wreaked in the main hall. Two Links were trying to make a break for it in the opposite direction. Someone should stay behind and watch over everything, she decided. As long as Peach didn't try and steal Sonic for her own, Zelda trusted her colleague to sort out the business with Pit. She was a tad psychotic, but you needed to be a psychopath to deal with several thousand Links.


	4. Chapter 4

"Three hundred and thirty... SIX!"

Marth positioned himself in-between the warrior who huddled behind his shield, sprawled in a rather undignified heap on the floor, and the arc of Ike's second casual broadsword swing just in time. Uttering a particularly unpleasant expletive, the mercenary pulled the blow at the last instant to avoid killing his friend.

"Ike! No! This is the REAL Link!"

Ike scratched his head, making even more of a mess of his spiky dark blue hair, which was tied back with a headband he had made by tearing a strip of cloth from his cloak.

"You sure?" he asked.

Marth nodded.

"He's been with us since before the incident." he assured Ike, "We were all in Swords-R-Us looking in the bargain bin when a big crowd of them came in and started buying out their entire stock. We had to grab hold of him to make sure we didn't accidentally leave with the wrong one. We ran like hell, and now he's hiding in here until the fuss dies down."

"The real Link would've been able to block my swing on his own." argued Ike, "He's, like, supposed to be a legendary warrior. You sure you didn't grab the wrong one by accident?"

"I've had a b... bad time of this crisis. I've had no time to train in months!" said Link, glaring at Marth, "You said nobody would attack me in here!"

"I didn't expect this stupid bastard to walk in here and start trying to kill my guests!" Marth glared at the mercenary, "Ike, you've been away for six months without telling us! Where've you been?"

"Hyrule." said Ike, walking over to the sofa. He sat down and started polishing his sword, "There's a bounty on those false Links. Five hundred per head."

"Oh, I'm glad you weren't ignoring the crisis completely!" said Marth, "Honestly, going off without telling us and not coming back to help when you knew perfectly well there was a crisis!"

"Can't you three sort it out on your own?" asked the mercenary, indicating Roy with his eyes before snapping his gaze back to Link. The younger of Team Fire Emblem was sprawled on a chair, playing on his DS.

"Ike, what happened to 'I fight for my friends'?"

"I don't say that no more. Everyone laughs at me when I say that."

"Hey, hey, quit bugging me, okay? I haven't been entirely useless! Look, I got us all this money!"

Roy peeked out from behind his DS just as Ike opened the suitcase. His eyes opened wide.

"Holy Saint Giygue, Ike, how many did you kill?"

"Already told ya. Three hundred and thirty si... five." he said, "They're nowhere near as good as the real Link."

"Yes, we're always a little rusty when we first reincarnate." said Link, "We're born fully grown and with some memories of battle, but we still need to train ourselves to use a sword properly again. Sometimes I don't even remember how to use my arms and legs."

"That's okay, Link-dawg, Ike here still doesn't know how to use his brain." commented Marth.

"So, what made you come back if you were on such a roll?" asked Roy.

"Well, I was thinking, I've got all this money, there are no decent sword shops in Hyrule, the Link supply isn't running out..."

"Are there still so many of me?" asked Link.

"More than we can hold back, and I've got all the Grail Knights with me and a few other friends." he grinned a wolfish grin, "This whole mission is totally futile, but I haven't had so much fun in years!"

"Ike, this is him you're talking about killing!" yelled Marth, "Show some subtlety for once!"

"N... no, its okay to kill them, I... think..." muttered Link, "They shouldn't exist. I know that much. But I don't think continuing to kill them is going to really solve the problem. I'm worried the server will overload and stop working altogether. Then when I die..."

"Don't die, then!" suggested Ike.

"Everyone dies in the end, Ike." said Marth.

"Except Nintendogs." contributed Roy.

"Except Nintendogs." amended Marth.

"Ike, you do know that when you're fighting this futile mission of yours..." said Link, "If and when you die... you may well be reincarnated as a Link too?"

Ike rested his sword on his knee and scratched his head again. He was silent for a long time after that. The look on his face was as unreadable as a corrupt disk.

"Ike?" asked Roy suddenly. The mercenary looked up at him.

"If you just came back to buy swords, why haven't you got any new swords yet?"he asked, "If I had that much money, I wouldn't bother coming back to HQ first, I'd be running down to SwordMart!"

"I... er... I was going to fetch you so I can buy you both a new sword each as well!" said Ike, grinning a rather skeletal grimace, "Yeah, that's right. It was going to be a surprise, but..."

"Ike, you're lying." said Roy, "You suck at lying. Even this puppy could spot you trying to lie. Even if you were going to share the money, you'd buy your own sword first so you could spend the lion's share on your own sword. Then you'd try and lie about how much you earned."

Ike sighed.

"Oh, okay, I'll tell you the truth. But this is strictly between you, me and Marth. Okay? That means we talk in private. Away from Link. If that really is Link."

"I'll be in the b... basement if you need me." Link sighed, slinking off out of the door. Roy got up to check that he wasn't trying to listen on the other side of the door, then he locked the door and walked over to Ike and Marth.

"Truth is, you see..." began Ike, "I m... met a... uh..."

"A what?" demanded Roy.

"A girl!" said Ike, "And I'm going on a date tomorrow!"


End file.
